Browsed byTag: installation

Ones might find it quite difficult to installa new product for the first time. Even though they installed previous version in the past (or particularly because of that!) That’s due to changes in requirements or event different structures of wizard form which requires information in different format. E.g domain administator accound in one version is required in administrator@domain.local format whils in other installation it accepts only domain\administrator format.

Thanks to that I’m going to provide the list of basic steps to install vRealize Automation 7 in minimal deployment.

I assume that you have successfully deployed the vRA appliance and prepared IaaS VM.

I suggest to perform the initial configuration from IaaS VM which will be helpful during IaaS components installation during the process. After accessing the vRA appliance console at port 5480 providing default password, the wizard will start. At this stage you can choose the deployment type. Below you can see description of enterprise deployment. I will choose minimal deployment for now, though. It’s

2. Now it’s high time to prepare IaaS server for installation of IaaS components. In vRA 7.x it is much more simplier and faster process. You simply need to install the agent to let the wizard discover the server and perform necessary steps then.

3. Here you can see that the server is discovered and you can move forward.

4. Next step is to check all the prerequisities and fix them if necessary.

5. Here you can see that there is a lot work to do on a freshly installed Windows Server.

6. Furtunatelly the wizard will do the job by itself. That’s the time for short break 😉 It takes approximately 15 minutes to perform all steps.7. When all tasks are done you can re-run the verification script to confirm that everything is fine and move to the next step.

8. Provide the FQDN of vRA VM.

9. Here you are going to create a password which will be used by the system administrator account.

10. Next step is to provide IaaS information, and here is the time to use domain\username format for IaaS Administrator account which should have local admin rights assigned.

11. Here you are going to provide information about the database server. I highly recommend to create new database. Keep in mind that IaaS administrator name which you provided in the previous step must have Sysadmin rights on Database Server. Without that the process will go forward. It will fail during the ending installation step, though.

12. For minimal or PoC deployment you can simply leave default values here.

13. The same as previous steps, leave it without changing. Just note the exact agent name which will be required during endpoint creation.

14. Provide the information for vRA self-signed certificates, untill you want to use custom ones.

15. Provide the information for Web self-signed certificates, untill you want to use custom ones.

16. Provide information for Manager service certificate.

17. Run the validation which might take about 10 minutes.

18. Now it’s the time for some kind of backup in case something went wrong. I suggest to take snapshot of IaaS server just in case. Even though validation stage was completed successfully there are some issues which could happen during installation. (I’ve faced a failed installation due to lack of appropriate database permissions)

19. Next just start the installation.20. If you didn’t miss anything your installation should be successfull 🙂

21. Next you should provide the license key.

22. Deselect the VMware CEIP agreement checkbox.

23. You can also provide the password for initial config content. It’s expecially usefull in case of PoC installation. By clicking Create Initial Content button a blueprint for default automation on basic vRA configuration will be created and published in default tenant service catalog.

24. After that you can will see the installation confirmation. Now you can start the play and begin the jurney with you vRA!

During the recent deployment of Veeam One as part of Veeam Availability Suite I met a mysterious problem during the installation.
The problems seemed to be related to Veeam Reporter Server.
Environment characteristic:
– Veeam 9.5 with Update One
– Virtual Machine in Windows AD domain
– Domain user with log on as service and local Administrator privileges
– External clustered MS-SQL Server 2012
– Database created by the installator or using the script provided by Veeam – both ways checked with the same result

After starting the installation (running as Administrator just to make sure) it was goint to Reporter Server installation and during that something was going wrong and the whole
installation was rolling back.

I wasn’t able to find anything on the Web which would be similar to my issue.
Then I tried to use a different database instanace – let’s say it was test one, with small difference – it was a standalone SQL Server beside the cluster.
And this time it worked correctly. This was really strange for my expecially in case I used the same VM, domain user, etc.

After that, guided by a Veeam Support I tried one more time installing each component separately. I mean installing first Veeam One server with WebUI option deselected.
Then using the CLI with fallowing commands I was able to successfully install Reporter and Business View.
cd /d D:\VeeamONEReporterWeb_x64.msi
cd /d D:\BV_x64.msi

During the installation of these additional components there is a wizard where is poissible to change internal database to external one.

According to VMware definitione vSphere Auto Deploy can provision hundreds of physical hosts with ESXi software. You can specify the image to deploy and the hosts to provision with the image. Optionally, you can specify host profiles to apply to the hosts, a vCenter Server location (datacenter, folder or cluster), and assign a script bundle for each host. In short that is the tool to automate your ESXi deployment or upgrade.

As far as I know in particular on the Polish market it is not a widely used tool. However, it can be helpful for Integrator’s Companies to improve and make far more faster deployment of new environments. Furthermore, VMware claims the scripted or automated deployments should be used for every deployment with 5 or more hosts. Nonetheless, even if you are woring as a System Engineer or at other implementation position I believe you are not installing new deployments every week..If that is every month – lucky you.

Well, is it really worth to prepare the AutoDeploy environment to deploy for instance 8 new hosts? – It depends.

IMHO, for such small deployments if you are really keen on making it a little bit fater the better way is to use kickstarts scripts. It can be much faster, expecially in case you are using them at least from time to time and you have prepared a good template (According the vSphere 6.5 I’m changing my mind a little bit due to changes which make AutoDpeloy preparation far more quicker)

However, Auto Deploy that’s not only deployment. It can be a kind of environment and change management. That can only be a specific kind of infrastructure where you use AutoDeploy to boot ESXi hosts instead of booting from local hard drives/SD cards.

Nevertheless, in Polands it is easier to meet classic PXE deployment booting from SAN than AutoDeploy. Is it the same trend seen around the world?

I am looking forward to hearing from you about yours experience with Auto Deploy.

This is the third part of the series in which I’m describing the process of installation vSphere 6.5 components. In this part I’ll go throught the process of installation vCenter Server on MS Windows Server 2012 R2.

Now let’s check how the Windows installation looks like in the latest vSphere version.

Prerequisities:

ISO for vCenter Server installation. Keep in mind that this is different ISO than used to PSC or vCSA deployment.

Account which can log in as a service (you can add it from Local Security Policy -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment -> Log on as a service)

(Optional) External Database with correctly configured ODBC.

For this demonstration I’m using embedded Postgress SQL instance which have the same limit as an external database and In my opinion in most cases it’s the best option.

1. The first step you have to do after you download the ISO image is to start the autorun. Then you choose the vCenter Serwer for Windows option and click Install button. You will also notice that there is no option to install vSphere Client for Windows from the installer page. However in vSphere 6.0 you were able to find the installer on the ISO in vSphere-Client folder. Unfortunatelly in vSphere 6.5 there is no more C# client for windows…For most of you (including me) it’s really bad news, althought there is the light at the end of the tunnel – new HTML5 client 🙂 It’s completely new and different user interface and I’ll devote the whole part of the series to show closer how it looks like.

2. On the welcome screan simply click Next.

3. Accept the End User License Agreement and click Next.

4. Choose the deployment type page allows you to choose which component should be deployed. In my case the external PSC was deployed in previous step and now I’m choosing vCenter Server. It’s important to notice that external PSC must be deployed before you start the deployment of vCenter Server Appliance.

5. Define the System Name. Notice that the FQDN you specify is already present and configured in your DNS. Click Next.

6. This is the step when you have to connect with your PSC and SSO domain. Provide the PSC FQDN name, SSO domain name, password for Administrator, and click Next.

7. Choose the account you would like to use for the installation. You could use the current account you are logged in or specify an other service account. Click Next.

8. This is the step where you can choose the database type. As I mentioned before in most cases I recommend to use embedded PostgreSQL. However you could also specify the external one. Click Next.

9. Confirm or specify some unusual port addresses you are going to use for specific services used by vCenter. Click Next.

10. Specify the installation directory or leave the default values and click Next.

11. Review the summary page and click Install to begin the installation process.

12.Monitor the installation progress.

13. After the installation is completed you can Launche vSphere Web Client and begin the real configuration of your management server.

If you want to try new HTML5 client you can type the https://vC_FQDN_IP in your browser and choose HTML5 option or go straight to https://vC_FQDN/ui

As you can notice on the vC welcome screan the HTML5 client is not fully functional yet. In the next part of the series I’ll go throught the new client to show you how it looks and how to navigate so please stay tuned 🙂

In the previous Part I of the series, I described the installation process of external PSC in vSphere 6.5. In this part I’ll go through the process of vCenter Server appliance deployment.

The first step is to download the vCSA ISO image and mount it for instance to your desktop. Inside the ISO image go to D:\vcsa-ui-installer\win32 and run the installer.exe. (This is the same ISO image used for PSC deployment). Then we choose the Install option, as you can see there are also available such option as Upgrade, Migrate and Rocever. All of them will be described further in next part of the series.

In vSphere 6.5 the process of deployment is divided into two phases, or more correctly stages. The first stage contains the deployment of the appliance where it is deployed in our infrastructure. The second stage will let you configure the PSC and creating SSO domain, etc. It’s nothing to do on this step, simply click Next.

Accept the End User License Agreement and click Next.

4. Choose the deployment type page allows you to choose which component should be deployed. In my case the external PSC was deployed in previous step and now I’m choosing vCenter Server. It’s important to notice that external PSC must be deployed before you start the deployment of vCenter Server Appliance.

5. In this step you have to provide the information about the host or vCenter where the appliance will be deployed. I’d like to emphasiss the option with vCenter which is new and in my opinion very helpful. It’s also the recommended option, of course if you already have a vCenter in place. That’s because if you connect directly to an ESXi host and it is in a DRS cluster, DRS initiated vMotions may occur during deployment process. To prevent this, you can either connect to vCenter managing the ESXi host or ensure the cluster where this ESXi host resides is not set to Fully Automated DRS for the duration of the deployment. You also need to provide the credentials to vCenter or ESXi host for an user that have the privileges do deploy and configure virtual appliances.

6. Verify and confirm the Certificate warning.

7. In case you have choosen the vCenter to connect tom, you can indicate a specific folder for the appliance. Click Next.

8. Choose the correct ESXi host to deploy it and click Next.

9. Specify the Virtual Machine name, root password and click Next.

10. Choose the right size of your deployment. VMware was so nice and inclueded information on the screen to let you choose the right size for your environment. In my case it’s “just” the lab so Thiny version will be more than enough. Click Next to go further.

11. Choose the datastore you want to use. There is also an option to configure the appliance this in thin provisioning mode. If you prefer so, simply mark the checkbox “Enable Thin Disk Mode” and click Next.

12. This steps requires the network configuration. You are supposed to provide port group from the available list of port groups configured on ESXi host/vCenter you choosed before. There is also a place for system name which is optional (in case you don’t provide it, IP address will be used instead)

13. Last step in stage one – confirmation. If all settings are correct click Finish to start the deployment process.

14. After all you can observe the progress via installator and host/vCenter.

15. When the deployment stage is done you go pass to stage 2 – basic configuration of our vCenter Server Appliance. To do that, click Continue.

16. Again you will see the welcome screean which informs you that this is the beginning of stage 2. Click Next to start.